RICH GET RICHER
A total of 60 millionaires paid no tax in 2019-20, according to the Australian Tax Office’s (ATO) latest stats, even though they reported earning $3.5 million each on average. Some claimed an $80,000 deduction for managing their tax affairs, which reduced their taxable income to below the tax-free threshold, an economist told the ABC. Plus litigation costs for managing tax affairs are tax deductible too — the average claim was $250,000 for that. OK, so what do these high-rollers do?! Cut people open, mostly. Doctors topped the list, earning $406,068 on average. The lowest paid were hospo workers ($19,877 on average). By gender, men earned $22,000 more than women in 2019-20 — averaging $74,559 v $52,798.
Where do these folks live? The ATO says the country’s biggest earners live not in Melbourne or Sydney — but Perth. WA’s Cottesloe and Peppermint Grove have an average income of $325,343, WA Today reports, while Sydney’s Darling Point and Edgecliff averaged $205,957. Conversely, our country’s lowest earners were regional NSW areas like Gurley, Burren Junction, Drildool, Nowley, Boomi, and Garah — probably because of farming losses, the ABC says. Hey, speaking of money out west — billionaire and United Australia Party chair Clive Palmer plans to sue Premier Mark McGowan and Attorney-General John Quigley for $50 million, The West ($) says. It comes just hours after a judge said the premier and Palmer’s defamation case had wasted the court’s time and WA taxpayers’ money.
ASKING FOR A FRIEND
NSW Liberal MPs will decide who their new deputy leader will be today, after Stuart Ayres resigned amid the explosive unfolding Barilaro inquiry, ABC reports. Yesterday we learnt former deputy premier John Barilaro helped his staffer-turned-girlfriend get a job at Investment NSW, which advertised the plum NY gig he was appointed to and then quit amid scrutiny. Jennifer Lugsdin worked as the media adviser at the agency, which was under Barilaro’s purview, although he says they weren’t in a relationship at the time. Investment NSW CEO Amy Brown says she remembers Barilaro calling her up about Lugsdin looking for a new job, though says he didn’t mention any relationship.
So when did they get together? Barilaro says his relationship with Lugsdin began after he left cabinet and after they’d worked together for two years, the SMH reports, and, it’s worth adding, after 26 years of marriage to his wife Deanna, which ended last year. Whether or not they were together, Lugsdin did have the inside scoop about the trade job, the inquiry heard yesterday — she was in an email chain on December 9 about the job, eight days before it was advertised. Yesterday Barilaro called himself the “victim”, not the “perpetrator”, in what he described as a “shitshow” (on that last one, at least, we can agree).
To another state integrity matter and Queensland’s long-awaited review into the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) will be handed down today by “corruption-buster” Tony Fitzgerald and retired Supreme Court judge Alan Wilson, The Courier-Mail ($) reports. It had more than 87 submissions, but the paper says one recommends the watchdog should be stripped of its ability to direct arrests and lay charges. One instance it mentions is that of former mayor Andrew Antoniolli who was arrested for breaching bail while having dinner — he spent the night in a watchhouse because there were no magistrates around. But is stripping a watchdog of its teeth really a good idea? There are suggestions the CCC could consult with the director of public prosecutions or an independent senior legal adviser before laying charges instead.
A STEEP PRICE
Indigenous Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price claims author Peter FitzSimons threatened her with legal action in a series of late night text messages, The Australian ($) reports. It came after Price accused him on social media of being aggressive during an interview for his column in the Nine papers where he asked her about her opposition to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Price claims FitzSimons told her she was “giving racists a voice” — but FitzSimons told the Oz ($) it was “complete and utter DEFAMATORY nonsense”, that neither of them shouted during the interview, and continued that the SMH lawyers will “pursue”. Price has deleted the post.
It comes as Price called Alice Springs, a “once beautiful town”, a “ghetto”, the NT News reports. She made the comments after returning from federal Parliament sittings in Canberra, where she says she felt ignored by the government. She called for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to visit Alice Springs, saying he could take a leaf out of Tony Abbott’s book and make regular trips there. Abbott is a former special envoy in Indigenous Affairs, and once claimed there was no evidence Indigenous peoples face justice system discrimination, as Guardian Australia reports.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
A pizza man in the US has been praised as a hero after saving five kids from a house fire. It was an average night for 25-year-old Nicholas Bostic, who was cruising along delivering pizzas in his local neighbourhood in Lafayette, Indiana, just after midnight. But something made him sit up in his seat: was that smoke escaping from a home he’d driven past? Bostic immediately reversed and pulled into the driveway of the home, leapt from the car, sprinted around the back and burst inside. He yelled into the home about the fire, but all he could hear was the crackle of flames. Had they already evacuated? He had to check. He ran upstairs to the bedrooms and found four kids sleeping soundly in their beds. Rousing the kids, he ushered the four downstairs and safely out of the house. But they told him frantically their sister was missing. A six-year-old girl was still in the burning home.
The flames were getting hotter and louder, but Bostic sprinted back inside and began searching the upstairs rooms again. The kid was nowhere to be seen. He turned back to the stairwell to head back down again, but it had become a black lagoon of billowing, acrid smoke. That’s when he heard it: the cries of a small child coming from downstairs. He told police that, even though he was terrified, he knew he “would not quit”. Bostic wrapped a shirt around his mouth and started to crawl downstairs, describing the heat as like “walking into an oven”. That’s when he found the terrified young girl. But where was the back door? The pair ended up heading back upstairs, where Bostic smashed a window open and, taking the child in his arms, leapt from the second-floor window, landing on his back to protect the girl. Bostic went to hospital for smoke inhalation and injuries from his fall, but the community was in absolute awe of his bravery, raising a hefty half a million dollars for him. His partner Kara Lewis posted a photo of a bandaged Bostic in his hospital gown on Facebook last month captioned “and we’re going home”.
Hope you feel a little bit brave today too.
SAY WHAT?
Bali is totally different to other countries because cattle roam the streets, cattle shit on the ground, people walk in that shit, that shit then is brought back in their clothing and on their person and back into this country.
Pauline Hanson
The One Nation leader’s outburst in the senate during a discussion about foot and mouth disease has been slammed by Indonesia’s Minister for Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno, who posted on social media that not only were Hanson’s comments about cattle in the streets plainly incorrect, but “Bali is not a country. Next time, please check it first in Google.”
CRIKEY RECAP
Pauline Hanson is using the Voice to Parliament to become relevant again
“After being marginalised in the last Parliament, Pauline Hanson is cashing in — both metaphorically and literally — on the debate about establishing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
“Hanson came into the 47th Parliament as a diminished figure. After early returns suggested her Senate spot was in doubt, Hanson was able to scrape in over Queensland LNP’s Amanda Stoker and minor parties United Australia Party and Legalise Cannabis Australia. Despite boasting an increase in support — which can be attributed to the party’s choice to run candidates in more House of Representative seats — the party actually suffered a nearly 3% swing away from it in Queensland Senate voting.”
Low-income earners will be worst hit by Australia’s war on inflation
“Once again the Reserve Bank has made it clear that the poor and marginalised in the community will feel the brunt of its tightening in monetary policy to control inflation — which no one in Australia outside company C-suites is responsible for.
“The central bank’s August statement of monetary policy, released on Friday, makes no bones about it — Australian households face a fall in their real incomes until 2024. The RBA now sees real disposable household income falling for almost a year and a half, including a 3.1% drop in the June quarter of next year. It will only start growing in late 2024, which is too far out in the forecast period to be accurate.”
Postcard from a bar in Taiwan: ‘nobody I talk to here gives a fat rat’s arse’ about China’s bullying
“‘May you live in interesting times’ is a quote with many meanings. Some describe it as a Chinese curse rather than a blessing: life being better and safer during the uninteresting times of peace and tranquillity, rather than the chaos of interesting times.
“Which brings me to how I find myself living in interesting times in Taiwan, a place recently described by The Economist as ‘The most dangerous place on Earth’. This must be news to Ukrainians. Years working in advertising eventually drove me to drink, so opening a bar seemed a sensible career move. My wife Gemma was born in a rustic Taiwanese fishing village and later moved to Japan to run bars for the Yakuza. We teamed up in Sydney to open the original Mamasan Bondi, before evolving into Bad Mama in Surry Hills.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Olivia Newton-John, pop singer and Grease star, dies at 73 (The New York Times)
[NZ’s] King’s College responds to revelations of [NZ] National MP Sam Uffindell’s assault on student (Stuff)
The names and faces of the 15 children killed in Gaza (Al Jazeera)
China-Taiwan: Beijing conducts new military drills near island (BBC)
Tesla setting up to overtake Toyota as the world’s largest carmaker (Drive)
Alex Jones’ texts have been turned over to the January 6 committee, source says (CNN)
Attacks at Ukraine nuclear plant are ‘suicidal’, UN chief warns (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
Senate passes $739bn healthcare and climate bill after months of wrangling (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
When ‘having it good’ leaves you with nothing: life as a renter on the poverty line — Kristin O’Connell (Guardian Australia): “It’s never been more obvious that those in the business of exploiting our need for shelter have no shame. Everyone’s wellbeing is affected by their living environment, but as an autistic person with a few psychosocial disabilities thrown in, I’m more sensitive than most. My current home has given me more stability than I’ve ever had – more than two years without an extended period of total breakdown. I’m on the public housing waiting list, just a few decades away from escaping the private rental market. In June I got a call from my real estate agent. On a month-to-month lease since August 2020, I feared my time was up.
“The thought of leaving my home makes me sick. Moving house is stressful for anyone, but my executive function hindered by disability, the task is guaranteed to destabilise. The real estate agent could hear the deep relief in my voice when she offered a six-month lease. Finally, a modicum of certainty. She moved quickly to ensure the feeling didn’t last: ‘But it’s not all good news. We need to put the rent up $90 a week.’ As I processed that nauseating figure, she added that it was ‘well below market … you’ve had it good for a long time’. Her statement was both true and ghoulish in its cruelty.”
Voice to Parliament: the ‘trust us’ approach is never going to work — Lidia Thorpe (the SMH): “First Nations people never ceded sovereignty. Before this country was invaded, there were over 500 sovereign nations on these lands. Each with their own laws, languages, and customs. Ours is the oldest living culture on earth. It is our right and responsibility as traditional custodians to protect our lands, waters, skies, and totems. We never surrendered that right. I have been accused of ceding sovereignty by entering Australian politics. That is offensive and untrue. When I swore allegiance in the Senate last week, I identified myself as a sovereign woman. I called the Queen a coloniser. I said that because it is true.
“As Bundjalung and Worimi Saltwater woman Phoebe McIlwraith writes: ‘My sovereignty predates the creation of the English language, it does not come from a crown or a throne, but the sea and soil. No parliamentary oath could ever take that away from me.’ Last week, I asked the Labor government how its referendum for a Voice to Parliament (or constitutional recognition) will affect First Nations’ sovereignty. Minister Penny Wong could not give me a clear answer. Successive governments have given First Nations people many reasons not to trust them. Bob Hawke promised to treaty with us in 1988, yet we are still one of the only major Commonwealth countries that does not have a treaty with First Nations people.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy and Essential Media’s Pete Lewis will unpack the fortnight’s political news in a webinar for The Australia Institute.
Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide)
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The University of Adelaide’s Melissa-Ellen Dowling, Debi Ashenden, and Lewis Mitchell join the Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group’s David Matthews in discussing how we can safeguard Australia’s digital future in a seminar held at the The Braggs Building — The University of Adelaide.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Futurist Keith Suter, reaching.org.au’s John Soliman, Southern Cross University’s Ben Roche, and Sikh Volunteers Australia’s Jawinder Singh will speak about community activity and government services at a seminar held at Aerial UTS Function Centre.
